sky news

Shell boss bags 26% leap in annual pay package after COVID oil price recovery

Ben van Beurden took home 57 times more than the median Shell worker in 2021 but will be facing pressure to temper awards for the current year as surging oil and gas prices bring misery to households and business alike.

The chief executive of Shell’s pay package rose by 26% to €7.4bn (£6.2m) last year amid a recovery in oil prices from COVID crisis lows, according to the company’s annual report. read more

Shell files offshore drilling plans for Alaska’s North Slope

17 Sept 2020

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Shell Offshore Inc. has submitted plans to plans to drill for oil in the waters along the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska in the coming years.

The Dutch oil industry giant applied to form the West Harrison Bay Unit to explore in state waters off the North Slope region, The Alaska Journal of Commerce reported Wednesday.

Documents submitted to the state Division of Oil and Gas said Shell has attempted to find a partner to work on the West Harrison Bay leases for at least a year. read more

Investors who take an interest in Royal Dutch Shell plc (AMS:RDSA) should definitely note that the CEO & Director, Ben Van Beurden, recently paid €22.74 per share to buy €217k worth of the stock. Although the purchase only increased their holding by 1.5%, it is still a solid purchase in our view.

Check out our latest analysis for Royal Dutch Shell

Royal Dutch Shell Insider Transactions Over The Last Year

Notably, that recent purchase by Ben Van Beurden is the biggest insider purchase of Royal Dutch Shell shares that we’ve seen in the last year. So it’s clear an insider wanted to buy, even at a higher price than the current share price (being €20.48). Their view may have changed since then, but at least it shows they felt optimistic at the time. In our view, the price an insider pays for shares is very important. It is generally more encouraging if they paid above the current price, as it suggests they saw value, even at higher levels. read more

With generous dividends and buybacks—and talk of cleaner energy—Royal Dutch Shell looks to boost interest in its shares read more

…these are also the same waters unsuccessfully explored by Royal Dutch Shell in 2015, after which the company halted Arctic operations for the foreseeable future.

Sam Ori , Contributor: JAN 8, 2018 @ 09:58 AM

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke released the Trump Administration’s long-awaited offshore drilling proposal last week. Once enacted, the plan will replace the existing leasing schedule, which was designed by the previous administration and had been set to run through 2022. New administrations are free to scrap the hold-over plans of prior administrations, and anyone who followed the 2016 presidential campaign knew that President Trump had a dramatically different view of offshore energy development than his predecessor. read more

In 2015, Shell abandoned its exploration activities in offshore Alaska, citing high costs and stringent regulations. However, in April this year, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order allowing offshore drilling in  the Arctic. This week, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) issued a statement highlighting the importance of U.S. energy dominance and the Administration’s national energy strategy. It also noted that two BSEE personnel were on-hand at the spudding operation on Monday to ensure compliance with approved permits, federal regulations and safety standards. read more

Royal Dutch Shell Plc quit its exploration quest offshore Alaska in 2015 after a ship it had leased suffered a gash in mostly uncharted waters…

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Eni US will become the first energy company allowed to explore for oil in federal waters off Alaska since 2015 after the Trump administration this week approved a drilling plan on leases the company has been sitting on for 10 years.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management approved the drilling plan of Eni US, a unit of Italy’s Eni on Wednesday as part of President Donald Trump’s plan to boost oil and gas drilling and make the country “energy dominant.” read more

David Blackmon: Contributor. Dec 21, 2016

The hits just keep on coming from our outgoing President. On Wednesday, Mr. Obama took one more of many parting shots at the domestic oil and gas industry at the behest of his supporters in the anti-development lobby, setting aside much of the northeastern Atlantic coast, all U.S. waters off the North Slope of Alaska in the Beaufort Sea and almost all of the federal waters in the adjacent Chukchi Sea “indefinitely off-limits for future oil and gas leasing.” read more

A boat crosses in front of the Transocean Polar Pioneer, a semi-submersible drilling unit that Royal Dutch Shell leases from Transocean Ltd., as it arrives in Port Angeles, Wash., aboard a transport ship after traveling across the Pacific before its eventual Arctic destination in an April 17, 2015 file photo. The federal government says it will ban offshore oil and gas licensing in Arctic waters, a measure to be reviewed every five years. 

The Canadian Press: DECEMBER 20, 2016 01:23 PM

CALGARY – The federal government announced Tuesday plans to ban offshore oil and gas licensing in the Arctic, citing the need to protect the environment from future energy development, but the move was largely dismissed by industry observers as a weak gesture that won’t harm their interests. read more

by: Shawn Donnan in Washington and Andrew Ward in London: 21 December 2016

US President Barack Obama has set the stage for a legal battle over drilling for oil and gas in Arctic seas after declaring a huge swath of those waters “indefinitely” off limits to exploration as part of a joint move with Canada.

Royal Dutch Shell, long at the forefront of exploration in Alaska, abandoned its drilling campaign there in 2015 after failing to strike oil. The Anglo-Dutch group had spent $7bn in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas since 2007, or about 20 per cent of its exploration budget. read more

Caitlin Morrison deputy digital editor at City A.M: Thursday 15 December 2016 8:47am

Royal Dutch Shell announced today that finance chief Simon Henry will step down in March 2017, to be replaced by Jessica Uhl.

Henry – who was appointed to the Lloyds Bank board in 2014 – has been with Shell for over 30 years, and has been chief financial officer for seven.

“I have been privileged to spend the past 34 years working with great colleagues, in a great company,” said Henry.

“Together we have made a difference in an industry that really matters to so many people around the world. I wish Jessica every success in the role, and am confident that she and Shell will deliver a world class investment, in the most responsible and sustainable way.” read more

Terry Macalister: Saturday 13 August 2016 07.00 BST

Arguments around the Arctic have more recently centred on oil company drilling such as Shell’s controversial and now abandoned attempts to explore off the coast of Alaska and new plans to open up the Norwegian far north.

But the increasing scope for industrialising the region as the ice melts has also triggered geopolitical tensions and talk of a new cold war because the legal status of who owns what up there is uncertain.

FULL ARTICLE read more

Shell Returns To Unalaska

By ZOE SOBEL: Saturday 6 August 2016

Shell is back in Unalaska. Dutch Harbor was a staging area for Shell’s unsuccessful search for oil in the Arctic Ocean last year. This week, three ships — the Aiviq, the Dino Chouest, and the Ross Chouest — associated with Shell’s Arctic efforts arrived in Unalaska on a mission to remove the last signs of that effort.

A Shell representative says the vessels are “tasked with retrieving more than 50 anchors from the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas” and “completing required environmental science monitoring and reporting.” read more

By Liz Ruskin, APRN: May 10, 2016

Shell is giving back all but one of its leases in the Chukchi Sea.

The announcement comes seven months after Shell said it was halting exploration in Alaska’s offshore Arctic for the foreseeable future.

Gov. Bill Walker calls the news “disappointing.”

Michael LeVine, Pacific senior counsel for the conservation group Oceana, says the lease-surrenders underscore Shell’s exit.

“They’re significant because they really call to an end this era of exploration, at least in the Chukchi Sea,” he said. read more

Jennifer A Dlouhy: May 10, 2016

Drillers forfeit millions of acres amid slump in oil prices

Royal Dutch Shell still holding on to one lease in Chukchi Sea

After plunking down more than $2.5 billion for drilling rights in U.S. Arctic waters, Royal Dutch Shell, ConocoPhillips and other companies have quietly relinquished claims they once hoped would net the next big oil discovery.

The pullout comes as crude oil prices have plummeted to less than half their June 2014 levels, forcing oil companies to slash spending. For Shell and ConocoPhillips, the decision to abandon Arctic acreage was formalized just before a May 1 due date to pay the U.S. government millions of dollars in rent to keep holdings in the Chukchi Sea north of Alaska. read more

Shell gives up on all but one Chukchi Sea lease

Yereth Rosen: Alaska Dispatch News: May 9, 2016

Royal Dutch Shell has decided to give up all but one of its federal offshore leases in the Chukchi Sea, bringing what appears to be an anticlimactic end to its multibillion-dollar effort to turn those icy Arctic waters off northwestern Alaska into a new oil-producing frontier.

“After extensive consideration and evaluation, we have made the decision to relinquish all but one of our federal offshore leases in Alaska’s Chukchi Sea. This action is consistent with our earlier decision not to explore offshore Alaska for the foreseeable future,” company spokesman Curtis Smith said in an email on Monday. read more

Ben Chu: 27 March 2016

Shell is reportedly exploring a sale of North Sea oil assets. The oil major, which has completed its $35bn (£25bn) merger with BG, has begun sounding out buyers for operations. 

Shell’s boss, Ben van Beurden, has already pledged to divest $30bn (£21.5bn) of assets globally and has described the North Sea as “old and mature”.

The Sunday Times reported that there have been early talks with Neptune Oil & Gas, which was set up by Sam Laidlaw, the former boss of Centrica. About 2,500 of Shell’s 7,500 employees work in the North Sea. BG was created in 1997 when British Gas divested Centrica. read more

That’s the hypothesis of David Houseknecht, one of the region’s foremost geologists and project chief for the U.S. Geological Survey’s Energy Resources Program for Alaska.

Other experts say the idea helps explain why public well results and rock chips have shown a large amount of gas in the reservoir but limited evidence of oil. Unlike Alaska politicians who jumped at the chance to blame federal regulations for Shell’s decision to abandon the Arctic, the scientists say the answer is simply a matter of geology — the oil just wasn’t there in big volumes.   read more

Sunday 17 JAN 2016

German carmaker Volkswagen was one of the “most disliked” companies for pressure groups last year following its emissions scandal, a survey has found.

Shell was the most criticised by campaigners, followed by Monsanto, which makes genetically modified food.

Half of the top-10 most criticised companies on Sigwatch’s list were energy firms, because of “the elephant in the room – climate change,” Mr Blood said.

Top was Shell, but TransCanada, ExxonMobil, EDF and BP also featured. read more

By LAURA CHESTERS FOR THE DAILY MAIL: 16 JAN 2016

The last time Royal Dutch Shell cut its dividend was in 1945 when the Netherlands had just endured the ‘Hunger winter’ under Nazi occupation before the end of the Second World War.

Now investors are worrying their treasured dividend could be under threat again.

Shell is embarking on an audacious takeover of gas specialist BG Group. The £36bn deal will go to a shareholder vote at the end of the month. However, with the oil price at a 12-year low, many are warning the deal does not make sense.

And worse still, some are fearful that if it does go ahead it will mean Shell won’t be able to afford to keep paying its healthy dividend.

Shell pays the best dividend in the FTSE 100 and yields around 7.2 per cent on the current promised $1.88-a-share dividend. As Steve Clayton, head of equities research at broker Hargreaves Lansdown, explains: ‘Half of Holland would keel over in apoplectic horror if Shell ever cut the payout.’

A handful of institutional investors have already pronounced their views on the deal. read more

Shell is challenging a decision by the federal government to deny its request to suspend leases in the Arctic waters off the coast of Alaska that would expire in 2017 and 2020. Federal leases expire at the end of their terms unless operators are engaged in drilling or related activity.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Jan. 14 (UPI) — A group of environmental activists filed a challenge to leases held by Royal Dutch Shell in Alaskan waters, citing the need to act on behalf of the climate.

Earthjustice, working on behalf of eight conservation groups, including the Sierra Club and Greenpeace, filed to intervene in decisions before the Department of Interior regarding Shell’s leases in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas.

“The Arctic Ocean is ground zero for climate change, and drilling in such a sensitive region threatens the whales, seals and countless other wildlife that call it home,” Earthjustice attorney Erik Grafe said in a statement. read more

By John Donovan: 7 JAN 2016

The continuing collapse in the price of oil is turning into a nightmare for the board of Royal Dutch Shell Plc. 

Especially for CEO Ben van Beurden and CFO Simon Henry, who have staked their reputations on completing Shell’s takeover of the BG Group.

This would not be the first major crisis at Shell for either executive. Both had involvement in the 2004 oil and gas reserves scandal. Ben van Beurden was personal assistant to the Group Chairman, Sir Philip Watts who was forced to resign. Simon Henry had a starring role. 

Both managed to survive but are unlikely to do so if the BG deal falls through, as is increasingly likely, because of the ill-fated miscalculation over oil prices. 

With hundreds of millions being paid to financial advisors, surely it was not beyond the ingenuity of those involved to have catered in the terms for the possibility of a severe fluctuation in the price of oil?  read more

Dutch supermajor notes the challenge does not equate to a resumption of drilling activity.

By Daniel J. Graeber: Dec. 17, 2015

WASHINGTON, Dec. 17 (UPI) — While Royal Dutch Shell said it aims to protect its drilling rights in the Arctic waters offshore Alaska, it said drilling was off the table for the foreseeable future.

Royal Dutch Shell in October said it was considering its options when the Bureau of Safety and Environment Enforcement denied its request to suspend leases in Arctic Alaskan waters that expire between 2017 and 2020. Leases expire at the end of their terms unless operators are engaged in drilling or related activity. read more

Dermot Cole: December 8, 2015

Fresh assertions that the Obama administration smothered Shell’s Arctic dreams followed the news that Statoil gave up on its leases, the second company to abandon plans to look for oil in the Chukchi Sea.

Citing market conditions and noting the leases “are no longer considered competitive within Statoil’s global portfolio,” the Norwegian company announced its withdrawal plans Nov. 17. The company had long taken a cautious approach in the region, using Shell as a bellwether. Earlier this year it had scaled back its plans to drill in the Barents Sea because of low oil prices. read more

Casey Hoerth, Casey’s Finance Journal (Blog) : Nov. 25, 2015 

Summary

Shell expects substantial cost savings and capex cuts in 2016.

Dividend sustainability in 2016 will depend on Brent crude prices.

At this time, I prefer companies that can actually acquire with oil at these prices.

Back in April, I wrote that Royal Dutch Shell’s (NYSE:RDS.A) dividend, while sustainable in the short term, would be hard to maintain in the long run if crude oil prices remained as low as they were. From what we’ve seen since April, it looks as if crude indeed wants to remain lower for longer.

Just last week, Shell had its Investor Day for 2016, where the company explained its vision for the coming year. This time around, the company didn’t center its presentation on full-year cash flow guidance for 2016. That’s because crude prices have been volatile to the point of full-year guidance being less than valuable. That, in turn, makes it difficult to get a handle on dividend sustainability for next year. This article focuses on a few things important to the company’s dividend: cash flow and capital expenditures. read more

Terry Macalister Energy editor: 25 October 2015

EXTRACTS

BP and Shell are set to unveil a drop of more than half in their third-quarter profits this week, raising new questions about their ability to retain dividends and avoid further job losses.

Shell has recently carried out its own cost reductions by trimming jobs in Aberdeen and by mothballing its drilling operations off Alaska for the foreseeable future.Specu lation continues, however, about dividend cuts. read more

By: Micheal Kaufman: Oct 19, 2015

The US Interior Department announced on Friday that it will cancel the auction of 2016 and 2017 natural gas and offshore oil leases in the Arctic Ocean. The auction was scheduled under the Department’s current five-year Chukchi Sea leasing program for 2012–2017. The division cited low crude oil prices and lack of interest from oil companies as the main reason behind its decision.

This news comes a few weeks after Royal Dutch Shell plc (ADR) (NYSE:RDS.A) withdrew its Arctic drilling plan. The oil giant had spent $7 billion for the Arctic campaign. It said last month that it has dropped its exploration and production (E&P) activities in the Burger prospect of the Chukchi Sea, as it found few traces of oil and natural gas in the region. The company was not satisfied with the drilling results; it had initially expected huge amount of oil traces in the Ocean. Shell has dropped all future plans of Arctic drilling for the foreseeable future. read more

The US government has announced new curbs on oil and gas exploration in Arctic waters off Alaska’s northern coast.

It comes after oil giant Royal Dutch Shell last month stopped its Arctic activity citing “disappointing” tests.

The US interior department said it was cancelling two potential Arctic offshore lease sales and would not extend current leases.

The announcement has been welcomed by environmentalists.

Miyoko Sakashita, of the Center for Biological Diversity, said the decision was “great for the Arctic and its polar bears”. read more

By CLIFFORD KRAUSS: OCT. 16, 2015

HOUSTON — The Obama administration shut the door Friday on drilling in Alaska’s Arctic Ocean over the next two years, canceling auctions for drilling rights in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas.

The decision by the Interior Department was not surprising because it came less than a month after Shell Oil canceled the most advanced exploration project in the region because of disappointing results from a test well and high costs at a time when oil prices are extremely low.

Still, the announcement is symbolically important as the administration steps back from its cautious support of drilling in the Arctic. read more

A former Shell Oil executive and catastrophic risk expert on the nightmare scenario when oil and ice mix.

by Lauren Ellis @lauren_jellis: October 15, 2015

Two drill vessels officially left Arctic waters after Royal Dutch Shell announced that the company would cease exploration in the Chuckchi and Beaufort seas. After a $7 billion investment and a standoff with kayaktivists, Shell cited a “disappointing exploration outcome,” meaning there’s oil in the Arctic, but not enough where they drilled to justify the cost. It’s a classic industry gamble called wildcatting: oil companies invest in an unexplored area hoping to strike black gold in the hidden reservoirs thousands of feet below the surface. read more

DAN JOLING: Associated Press: Oct. 13, 2015

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Two drill vessels employed by Royal Dutch Shell PLC off Alaska’s northwest coast have safely departed Arctic waters for the Pacific Northwest.

The 572-foot Noble Discoverer, owned by Noble Drilling U.S. LLC, reached Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands on Sunday afternoon. After a Coast Guard inspection, the vessel departed Monday for the Port of Everett in Washington state, Shell spokesman Curtis Smith said.

The Polar Pioneer, owned by Transocean Ltd., reached Dutch Harbor on Monday afternoon. Two tug boats accompanying the semi-submersible drilling vessel, the Ocean Wind and Ocean Wave vessel, planned to refuel and change crews. The Polar Pioneer will be towed to Port Angeles, Washington. read more

BY ANTONIA JUHASZ / OCTOBER 13, 2015

Earlier this month, Shell’s tumultuous Arctic drilling campaign came to an abrupt and costly end. In a written statement, the company announced the cessation of its offshore Alaska activities “for the foreseeable future”—at a loss of billions of dollars. This both stunned and thrilled critics, many of whom worried that the seven-year effort to stop Shell was dead in July, when the Obama administration approved the company’s permits to drill. read more

Yereth Rosen: Alaska Dispatch News: October 3, 2015

When Royal Dutch Shell announced that it had lost its big-money bet in the Chukchi Sea and would end its entire program in the offshore U.S. Arctic, the hyperbole and finger-pointing began in earnest.

Rep. Don Young accused President Obama and Interior Secretary Sally Jewell of deliberately sabotaging Alaska’s economy. “I’m sure somewhere Sally Jewell and President Obama are smiling and celebrating Shell’s decision to cease operations off the coast of Alaska,” Young said in a statement issued just after Shell’s announcement. read more

Mon Sep 28, 2015 6:21am EDT

By Karolin Schaps

(Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell has abandoned its Arctic search for oil after failing to find enough crude, a move that will appease environmental campaigners and shareholders who said its project was too expensive and risky.

The withdrawal came six weeks after the final U.S. clearance and three months after Shell was still defending the project, a rapid change of heart for such a large company that showed it is preparing for a prolonged period of low oil prices while trying to close its $70 billion takeover of rival BG. read more

FoxNews.com: Sept 28, 2015

Royal Dutch Shell said early Monday that it was ceasing offshore oil and gas exploration in Arctic waters after a test well yielded unsatisfactory amounts of oil and gas.

The announcement was a huge blow to Shell, which was counting on offshore drilling in Alaska to help it drive future revenue and had poured billions in investment and years of work into the exploratory well. Environmentalists, however, had tried repeatedly to block the project, and welcome the news.

A statement from the company’s headquarters in The Hague said Shell was ending exploration off Alaska “for the forseeable future” after what it called “a clearly disappointing exploration outcome.”

Shell said it had found indications of oil and gas in the well in the Chukchi Sea, about 80 miles off Alaska’s northwest coast. However, the petroleum was not in quantities sufficient to warrant additional exploration in that portion of the basin, the company added. read more

September 28, 2015 | By Jennifer A. Dlouhy

WASHINGTON — After spending $7 billion and seven years searching for oil under Arctic waters, Royal Dutch Shell on Monday said its quest had come up dry.

Shell announced that its exploratory oil well in the Chukchi Sea north of Alaska encountered “indications of oil and gas” that are “not sufficient to warrant further exploration” — a significant blow for the Anglo-Dutch firm that had hoped to find a multibillion barrel crude reservoir in those remote waters.

“Shell continues to see important exploration potential in the basin, and the area is likely to ultimately be of strategic importance to Alaska and the U.S.,” said Marvin Odum, director of Shell Upstream Americas. “However, this is a clearly disappointing exploration outcome for this part of the basin.” read more

By Steven Mufson September 11

Shell Oil Co.’s president Marvin Odum made the trip on Sept. 2 from Houston to this northern-most town in the United States, a spot whose traditional name, Ukpeagvik, means “place where snowy owls are hunted.”

Odum is here hunting, too, for oil offshore and political support from Alaska Natives living in Barrow, a ramshackle town of muddy streets, littered with all-terrain vehicles and guarded by snow fences on one side and on the other a four-foot-high earthen berm to protect against high winds and seas. read more

Shell has been forced to leave a Prince of Wales climate change project which it helped found after a row over the oil company’s controversial drilling programme in the Arctic. The departure from the Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leader Group is another embarrassing setback for the oil and gas company, which has been battling to preserve its reputation in the face of a vociferous and growing campaign against its operations in the Chukchi Sea off the coast of Alaska. Greenpeace said the Anglo-Dutch group was rapidly becoming a pariah in the business world. read more

By STEVEN LEE MYERS and CLIFFORD KRAUSS: SEPT. 7, 2015

TERIBERKA, Russia — The warming Arctic should already have transformed this impoverished fishing village on the coast of the Barents Sea.

The Kremlin spent billions in the last decade in hopes of turning it into a northern hub of its global energy powerhouse, Gazprom. It was once the most ambitious project planned in the Arctic Ocean, but now there is little to show for it aside from a shuttered headquarters and an enormous gravel road carved out of the windblown coastline like a scar. read more

The Transocean Polar Pioneer sits in the Chukchi Sea on Aug. 5, 2015

Paul Fuhs: September 2, 2015

A lot has been said by many people about Shell’s Arctic drilling program but I have yet to see a real analysis of what it would mean for Alaska and our people.

Some have said: “Well, it is in federal waters so we won’t get anything out of it.” I just don’t believe that is true. Here are some of the direct benefits we will receive if Shell is successful in their endeavors.

The current throughput of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline is about 400,000 barrels a day and declining by about 5 percent a year. It has been estimated that below 200,000 barrels a day the pipeline will not be able to operate. A study by the Idaho National Energy Lab estimates that if this were to occur, we would strand at least 1 billion barrels of oil on the North Slope. read more

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Aug 31, 2015, 10:31 PM ET

Royal Dutch Shell PLC has resumed operations after high winds and rough seas north of Alaska’s northern coast put a temporary stop to exploratory drilling in the Arctic Ocean.

But Shell spokesman Curtis Smith says in a Monday email to The Associated Press that full operations, including drilling, will start again once a systems check is complete and the company is satisfied it’s safe to start drilling again.

He says there’s no timeline for that to be completed. read more

Ryan Schuessler: August 24 

KODIAK, Alaska – Researchers are scrambling to determine what’s behind the death of 30 whales in the Gulf of Alaska as unusually warm ocean temperatures continue to wreak havoc on the region.

Since May 2015, 14 fin whales, 11 humpback whales, one gray whale and four unidentified specimens have been found dead along shorelines in the Gulf of Alaska, nearly half of them in the Kodiak Archipelago. Other dead whales have been reported off the coast of British Columbia, including four humpbacks and one sperm whale. read more

Markets | Mon Aug 17, 2015

By Timothy Gardner

Aug 17 (Reuters) – The Obama administration granted Royal Dutch Shell final clearance on Monday to resume drilling for oil and gas in the environmentally fragile Arctic Ocean for the first time since 2012, a move green groups vowed to fight.

The U.S. Department of the Interior permit allows Shell to drill in the oil-rich Chukchi Sea off the northwest coast of Alaska. Shell interrupted its drilling program in the region in 2012 after suffering a series of mishaps, including losing control of an enormous rig, from which the Coast Guard had to rescue 18 workers. read more

It could set major oil companies against each other but also superpower against superpower as they scramble to exploit the last untapped giant reserves in a part of the world where territorial boundaries remain unclear. No wonder some fear a new cold war.

FULL ARTICLE WELL WORTH READING

Karl Mathiesen: Wednesday 12 August 2015

This is the first time the Anglo-Dutch giant’s star-crossed Arctic programme will drill deep enough to hit oil. The company has reportedly spent $7bn (£4.5bn) on getting to this point, including replacing its prize Kulluk rig after it ran aground off Alaska in 2012. For them to gain any of this back, a number of things need to happen.

FULL ARTICLE WELL WORTH READING

Pickard is known as one of the oil industry’s toughest political operators with a history of doing whatever it takes to further Shell’s interests – and the Arctic is ‘just too big a prize’ to leave read more

THE HAGUE, July 24, 2015 /PRNewswire/ —

NOT FOR RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION, IN WHOLE OR IN PART, IN OR INTO ANY JURISDICTION WHERE TO DO SO WOULD CONSTITUTE A VIOLATION OF THE RELEVANT LAWS OF SUCH JURISDICTION

Royal Dutch Shell plc (“Shell”) (NYSE: RDS.A) (NYSE: RDS.B) today announced that its recommended combination with BG Group plc (“BG”) has received unconditional merger clearance from the Brazilian competition authority (CADE), satisfying the first of the pre-conditions to the combination. Other pre-conditions include merger clearances in Australia, China and Europe. read more

ALICE HARROLD: THE INDEPENDENT: Friday 24 July 2015

The Obama administration has granted permission to Royal Dutch Shell to drill for oil in the Chukchi Sea, off the northwest coast of Alaska.

The company was given the final approval for its application to drill in the Arctic on Wednesday in what was a major loss for green activists who have fought the drilling plans.

Shell has been granted permission start drilling exploratory wells about 140m off the coast of Alaska – one of the best prospective offshore areas in the world. read more

Feds say Shell completed test for blow-out well response ahead of Arctic drilling

Posted on June 18, 2015 | By Jennifer A. Dlouhy

WASHINGTON — Shell employees and contractors successfully deployed and tested emergency equipment meant to respond to a blown-out well in the Arctic Ocean, federal regulators said Thursday.

The exercises, conducted Tuesday and Wednesday in waters near Washington state, focused on Shell’s capping stack, designed to sit atop a damaged well and choke off flowing oil and gas.

Officials with the Interior Department’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement oversaw the deployment of the equipment Tuesday in waters slightly deeper than Shell’s proposed drilling sites in the Chukchi Sea northwest of Alaska. Specifically, they watched as workers maneuvered the capping stack up and off the rear deck of the MV Fennica and 150 feet below the surface of the water. read more

Greenpeace protesters confront Shell Arctic drilling rig off B.C. coast

Royal Dutch Shell drilling rig left Seattle Monday en route to offshore oil drilling in Alaska

Protests against Royal Dutch Shell’s Arctic drilling program continued Wednesday, with Greenpeace activists confronting the drilling rig off the coast of B.C. on its trip north from Seattle, Wash.

First Nations activist Audrey Siegl, who lives in Vancouver, wore traditional Musqueam regalia while drumming in front of the 90-metre tall rig, according to photos and video provided by Greenpeace.

The Greenpeace video also showed swimmers in wetsuits, holding a protest sign that said “People vs. Oil,” appearing close to the massive rig as it kept plowing through water about 40 nautical miles west of Vancouver Island. read more